


Something Always (Brings Me Back To You)

by Kedavranox



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Break Up, Draco In Glasses, Established Relationship, M/M, Suspense, magical theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-18
Updated: 2014-12-18
Packaged: 2018-03-01 13:25:14
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,910
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2774630
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kedavranox/pseuds/Kedavranox
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Centre for Magical Theory and Complex Spell Classifications keeps fucking with Harry’s dig sites, and he’s pretty sure Malfoy has ulterior motives.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Something Always (Brings Me Back To You)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [firethesound](https://archiveofourown.org/users/firethesound/gifts).



> Fire, you’re an amazing writer, and I was so happy to have the opportunity to make something for you. I’m really sorry that I couldn’t give you all the steamy smut and the wonderful fic you deserve, but I did try to fit in a few of your likes. I hope you enjoy this anyway.

I flung open my tent flap and stalked inside with Draco right behind me, close enough so that I felt the heat of his body.

‘This is utter bollocks, Malfoy, and you know it.’

I yanked my utility belt off, letting it fall to the floor with a thud as I unzipped my jacket, trying to pretend my hands were only shaking because I was angry. As I shrugged out of the long leather sleeves, trying not to take my jumper off as well, my movements were wooden and stiff. I was hyper aware of Draco behind me, his gaze on my back. I felt it as if it were his hands on my skin, his lips against the nape of my neck, the way they used to be.

I tossed the jacket on the small cot, the only space in the tent free of rune scrolls and old stacks of parchment. Everywhere else was covered in dust and artefacts, or tools and trowels. I put my hands on my hips and forced myself to take three deep breaths before turning around to finally face him.

Of course, the really shitty part was that despite what happened between us, I couldn’t even look at Draco without my heart doing ridiculously asinine teenaged somersaults. He was still Draco. Same pale skin, same ridiculously expressive grey eyes.

Even dressed in robes as he was now, done up stiffly to the collar, the sleeves drowning his slender wrists, he was perfect to me. Impossibly beautiful. Of course, I’d never say something like that out loud. Not to myself, and certainly not to Draco. You couldn’t say things like that to him. Draco, who insisted we should never fuck in the same place twice before I got him to finally take me to his flat and fuck me on a bed. He still called me Potter even after three months of waking up beside each other more often than not.

I didn’t want to look, but my gaze was drawn to his lips and they were pink and slightly swollen, as if he’d been chewing on them non-stop. He did that a lot when he was nervous.

As the memory came back to me, I wondered when I was going to forget all those little tidbits -- the small mysteries that made Draco who he was. I was both afraid and hopeful that it would happen. That I could forget.

I looked away from his mouth and tried to concentrate on a stain on the canvas tent panel behind his head. ‘You’ve shut down three of my biggest jobs in the past month, Malfoy,’ I said, doing my best keep my voice free of inflection and avoiding eye contact. ‘I know this isn’t a fucking coincidence.’

I took another deep breath, reminding myself to calm down and not give Draco the satisfaction of seeing it, seeing how much this moment - the last fucking hour - was taking out of me.

God, it hurt. It hurt standing there and pretending I didn’t know what I knew. That I couldn’t punch him or yell at him, or ask him what the fuck he was thinking even though I knew I had no right to. He’d broken things off with me before it happened. He was in the clear.

Draco’s expression was bland, and he couldn’t seem to meet my gaze. He picked at his nails nonchalantly as he spoke. ‘I can’t help it if you keep choosing sites with magic of public interest.’

‘Public interest? How the bloody fuck is this magic of public interest? There is _nothing_ here we haven’t seen before. It’s a standard dig, Draco, curses my godson could break.’

Draco had no response to this; instead, he was looking about the tent with a feigned air of mild boredom.

I sighed. ‘You’re so full of shit, Draco.’

Draco shrugged, his gaze still roaming around the tent. When his gaze landed on my small cot, his eyebrows lifted. ‘No one to share your cot with?’ His voice was politely inquiring, but his shoulders were tense, so I wasn’t fooled. The tight shoulders, his raw lips, the way he couldn’t look me in the eyes; these were all his biggest tells.

‘That’s what this is about, is it?’ I asked with an incredulous laugh, though it felt more like a stinging hex to the chest. ‘Haven’t you read the papers lately, Malfoy?’ I murmured, trying to catch his gaze. Trying to find some measure of what he was thinking. Needing to know where I stood. ‘My bunk is empty.’

‘I never did trust the _Prophet_.’

‘I can’t believe you still think you can bullshit me after all this time.’

Draco finally looked me in the eye. His gaze was so full of… something, I stopped breathing for a few seconds. I licked my lips and said, ‘You know it’s none of your business who I fuck anymore, right?’

Draco’s gaze flicked away, landing on an elf-made woodwork sculpture sitting on my wrinkled and stained Persian rug. The rug was worth a few thousand Galleons, but I liked it so much, I couldn’t bring myself to sell it off just yet. I expected him to say something scathing, something about my taste or that I didn’t deserve genuine Persian if I couldn’t take care of it – mostly because I’d heard it a dozen times before- but he didn’t say a word.

When the silence grew too thick, I took a small step forward, shoving my hands into my pockets. ‘Malfoy, you know that, right?’

‘Isn’t it though?’ Malfoy’s voice was light, but when his gaze rounded on me, it was heavy, weighted with meaning.

‘Draco, this is...insane. You’re the one who ended things… _you’re_ the one who—’

_You’re the one who fucked someone else._

Draco held up a hand. ‘I know what I said, I—’ He paused and chewed his lip, then made an abortive sort of movement, as if he were planning to move closer to me and then changed his mind.

He seemed to gather himself, and his features settled into one of his usual masks of indifference. I looked away from it, focused on his hands. They were clenched into fists.

‘This isn’t personal, Potter, I assure you,’ he said, in his “business” voice — the same I’d heard him use on his MTCSC Floo Calls. ‘The Centre for Magical Theory and Complex Spell Classifications is just _very_ interested in some of these curses you’re ever so blithely tearing apart.’

I laughed shortly and walked away from him, and sat on my cot, pulling off my boots. ‘I’m a Curse Breaker, Draco, it’s what I do.’

Draco licked his lips. ‘And I study and preserve complex spells. It’s what I do.’

‘No, you ride in on every one of my digs and muck things up. _That’s_ what you do.’

‘Some of those curses you’ve destroyed are hundreds of years old. They deserve to be preserved and studied, not torn to shreds by an egomaniacal Gryffindor.’

‘So that’s why you’re here?’ I asked, pulling off my sock, rolling it into a ball and stuffing it into my boot. ‘To _save all the magic?’_

Draco sighed and looked at me for a long moment before his shoulder sagged and he unclenched his fists. He closed his eyes briefly and ran both of his hands through his hair. It fell back into a tousled mess atop his head, and I felt a little better seeing him come just a little undone.

‘What do you want me to say, Harry? That I miss you? That I wanted to see you? You’d know that already if you’d read a single one of my owls.’

I looked away from him. ‘Don’t fuck with my head like this.’

 _‘I’m_ fucking with your head? How long did it take for you to start up with Lee Jordan?’

The injustice of this had me reeling, and I couldn’t tell him to go fuck himself without telling him what I knew. Not without letting him see what it did to me. Not without letting him win.

I laughed, a short hollow laugh, and it was thicker and heavier than I wanted it to be. Whether I wanted it or not, I was coming undone right there in front of him and I hated him more than anything for that.

‘Fuck you, Draco.’ I said it quietly, but I meant it. He was such a full of shit liar, acting like this was my fault because he read about Lee and me in the paper, but he didn’t know.

‘Well,’ Draco murmured, looking at the tips of his shoes. ‘I’m glad you had your fun sticking _your_ dick where you really wanted it.’

Two days. _Two days_ after breaking things off with me, he was already balls deep in Parkinson, and the git had the fucking gall to look me in the eye and tell me off about fucking around.

I swallowed and it felt like I was trying to push a snitch down my throat. I tossed my other sock across the room. When I felt I could talk again, I said – in the monotone voice I’d perfected for times like these - ‘I’m not having this conversation with you, Draco.’

Draco did that _thing_ where he stared at me and I knew he was cursing me in his mind. His lips were pressed together, the muscles in his jaw all bunched up as he stood there and seethed before giving me a short nod.

‘Fine then,’ he said, nodding to himself. ‘Let’s just pretend we’re both pleased with the way things turned out, shall we?’ He pinched the bridge of his nose briefly and then sighed. ‘Just so you know, MTCSC isn’t here just to mess with your perfect life. We have actual data on a complex rune system we’d like to look into. We’ll try to stay out of your way.’

He turned and tried to walk away from me, and I murmured, ‘You’re such a liar,’ beneath my breath. My voice wavered. I sounded tired and weak, and I hated it.

Draco’s shoulders tensed as he stilled. He turned to face me, his brow furrowed, his façade of complete control falling away from his face like leaves from a dying tree. For the briefest moment, I saw Draco – just Draco – and it brought me down completely.

‘You’re such a liar.’ I repeated, shaking my head, unable to say anything else.

‘Harry,’ he said quietly, ‘Why won’t you just—’

But he never finished the sentence, because the flap to my tent swung open, and in walked Pansy Parkinson, dressed like some sort of hippie Mary Poppins, her dark blonde hair piled into a messy bun on her head.

She stopped short as she entered the tent, noticing the way Draco and I were staring at each other. She hesitated a little before walking to Draco’s side and stopping there like she was some sort of bodyguard or something.

As I saw her there, standing close enough to Draco that their shoulders brushed, it all came flooding back – the image of them writhing together like snakes on Draco’s ridiculous four poster bed.

After he broke things off, I missed Draco like hell, but I was so angry with him, I didn’t want to go see him. But I let Hermione convince me he was just afraid; that Draco was testing me and all I had to do was show him I wasn’t going anywhere. So I tried to see him.

When I let myself into his flat, intending to barge in on him whether he wanted me there or not; ready to tell him where to stick his insecurities - to have some faith in me for fuck’s sake; everything inside of me - the words, thoughts, half-baked plans of letting him fuck me on his kitchen table - everything fell away when I found him fucking Parkinson on his bed. The same bed we fucked in. The same black satin sheets beneath Parkinson’s back.

As I stood there, staring, unable to move, I noticed – on a vague, numb sort of level - that Draco said her name a lot when he fucked her.

I thought that was something he only did with me.

He was gentle with her. Soft. Slow. He was making love to her.

He always _fucked_ me.

It was always rough between us - bruises and hair pulling and ‘ _Spread your legs, for me, Harry’_ and biting my jaw - and I loved those things, but seeing him with Parkinson… seeing the way it was all softness and sighs and breaths and her name on his lips, I knew that all my bullshit excuses for Draco breaking things off with me were just that. Bullshit.

Being in my small tent with them felt like having barbed wire wrapped around my lungs - beneath the skin.

Parkinson broke the silence. ‘Potter, I’m sure Draco told you why we’re here.’

As she said his name, the memory echoed in my head. I remembered she kept saying his name, too. Draco’s back was full of red scratches, bruises from Parkinson’s nails digging into his back. I don’t know how long I stood there, watching them before I quietly left the flat and went home. I drank whiskey until I fell asleep. I stayed in bed for the rest of the week, until Ron got me out of the house, dusted me off and took me for drinks. Then I’d let Lee fuck me in the bathroom of the Three Broomsticks, and the Prophet snapped a shot of him dragging me home to fuck some more.

I pushed all of this away as my gaze flicked to Draco. ‘We were just getting to that, actually.’

We both glanced at Draco, but he didn’t seem inclined to say anything now that Parkinson was around.

Did he feel a little sullied, I wondered, having both of his most recent fuck buddies in the same room together?

I turned my back away from them, headed to my desk, and grabbed a stack of rune scrolls I had no use for, trying to look preoccupied. ‘Do whatever the fuck you want,’ I said, my back still turned away from them both. ‘Just stay away from me.’ I glanced at them over my shoulder. Draco’s cheeks were pink. ‘Both of you.’

Draco looked on the verge of some kind of retort, but Parkinson rested her hand on his forearm and he went silent, turned and left the tent.

As the canvas flap to my tent fell closed again, I tossed the scroll of runes on the desk, giving up the pretence, and turned to face Parkinson. I leaned against the desk, crossing my ankles and folding my arms across my chest. ‘You’ve certainly got him well trained,’ I said.

Parkinson narrowed her eyes at me with her brow furrowed, looking genuinely confused by my hostility. ‘Why are you treating him like this?’

I rolled my eyes. ‘Fuck off, Parkinson,’ I said. ‘The faster you go do your supposed job, the faster you can get the fuck off my dig.’

Her eyes grew large as she stood there, hands on her hips looking at me as though I’d lost my mind. I was never particularly pleasant to her before, though we’d been on some kind of tensely woven, unspoken truce when Draco and I were… whatever. But I’d never been so openly hostile before, and I knew I caught her off guard.

Her face was slightly flushed, devoid of makeup and her nose still reminded me of a pug – even if I knew that was just the jealousy talking. But, she was beautiful, in an earthy, plain kind of way. I could see – at least a little - what he saw in her.

‘Draco’s been trying to get a hold of you. Why are you just ignoring his owls?’

‘None of your fucking business, Parkinson.’

‘You hurt him like this, and it is my business.’

The implication that I was the arsehole was such bullshit, I couldn’t even respond to it, but I felt my magic stirring around, restless.

Parkinson took advantage of my silence and went on. ‘You and I both know MTCSC is here because of you. It’s the only way he could see you. Why are you being such a prick to him?’

I laughed hollowly, even though it felt as though someone was squeezing my windpipe. ‘You know why, Parkinson,’ I said. When she still looked lost, I added, ‘I’m not stupid.’

She stilled, hesitated for a beat and then said. ‘What are you on about, Potter?’

I shook my head. ‘Just get the fuck out of my tent.’

‘You’re such a self-righteous little Gryffindor,’ she said, stepping forward. ‘So he broke things off with you, tough fucking luck. He was confused. He needed some time. He’s trying to make it up to you now.’

‘Make it up to me?’

‘Yes, Potter! Why can’t you give him a chance? You hurt him, too, you know. Photos of you and Lee Jordon all over the _Prophet_ every day. You’re not completely innocent either, you know.’

I turned away from her, rounded the desk and dropped myself onto my cot. I lay back and stared up at the canvas ceiling. ‘Believe whatever you want,’ I said. ‘Tell him whatever you want. Tell yourself whatever you want. Just leave me out of it.’

I closed my eyes and didn’t move again until I heard Parkinson leave.

~~

The MTCSC was everywhere, fucking with my schedule, sticking their ridiculously clean, upturned noses into every corner they could find until Bill came back, fresh from Cairo, looking lobster red and sunburned.

He spent a good few minutes yelling at me for being ‘soft on Malfoy’ and letting the MTCSC get away with whatever they liked before setting up his own tent and getting things under control again.

I stood in front of his desk, rolling a Remembrall between my fingers as he carried on and on, but I didn’t really hear a word he was saying.

Until he brought up the age old argument between us.

‘I’m sending you to Cairo, Harry,’ he said, his nose buried in MTCSC paperwork. ‘Let me deal with the MTCSC. I’ll be closer to the girls, and you can get away from all this.’ He looked up at me and held up a hand before I could argue. ‘This time, I mean it, Harry. It’s for the best. You’re tied up in knots with Malfoy around. I want you back out on a proper dig. Get your head in order.’

I shifted my stance and dropped the Remembrall onto his desk with a thud. ‘When?’

‘There’s a Portkey in the morning.’

_‘The morning-?’_

Bill looked up at me, his expression tight. ‘Get packed, Harry.’

I turned stiffly and stalked out of Bill’s tent. As I crossed the grass to my own tent, out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of white blond hair among the team hovering around our site. I swung the flap closed behind me and flung myself behind my desk, privately seething at Bill’s bad timing.

I wanted to leave. Of course I did. But with Draco here…

I swiped an arm across my desk, knocking everything to the floor, then, for good measure, I pushed the desk over, too. Breathing heavily after the exertion, I stood up and kicked my chair over, then, feeling stupid, picked it up again and sat down, closing my eyes, trying to get my breathing under control.

As I had been doing, helplessly for the past few days he'd been around, I thought about Draco. I kept thinking about when Draco broke things off with me. We’d just fucked in my flat for the first time, and when I came back from my morning piss, I found him wide awake, sitting at the edge of the bed, slipping into his jumper.

I wasn’t even properly coherent when he started talking. I just sat next to him on the cot as he went on about how much time we’d been spending together, that things were getting too intense, that we’d agreed to be casual. But then there _I_ was asking him to stay the night. I was too much. I wanted too much. I pressured him. I was too demanding. We should take a break. Then I was numb, and all I could say was, _‘If that’s what you want,’_ and then there was only silence between us.

I knew he expected me to do what I always did. To get loud. To argue with him. But what was the point of it? What did he expect? He listed out a tonne of reason why he felt we couldn’t work; he told me where I stood. What could I have done about that?

Was it what I wanted? No. _Fuck no._ But he was right. I _was_ getting intense. I _did_ want all the things he didn’t want. Wasn’t it inevitable? If I said something, would he have stayed? Would he still have gone and fucked Parkinson?

I shook my head. It didn’t matter. All of that was over. What I had to deal with now was the MTCSC. As long as they were around, Draco was always going to be in my life.

Unless I took the Portkey in the morning.

My tent flap swung open, and Draco walked in, stopping short as he took in all the recent chaos. Everything from my desk was all over the floor, my desk was still on its side. I felt my face heat and I stood as he carefully stepped over all the overturned crap. He stopped halfway in to pick my utility belt up off the floor, and he handed it to me as he drew closer.

I took it from him, running my fingers across the brown leather, not looking up at him as he waited silently for me to say something.

‘I saw you coming in,’ he said. ‘You looked really… annoyed.’

I nodded and draped the tool belt across the back of my chair. ‘Yeah.’

I looked at him again and his gaze was fixed on the tool belt. His hair was so much longer now and he was able to tie it up at the nape of his neck, though there wasn’t much hair past the leather tie and most of his hair was tucked behind his ears. As always, he was gorgeous to look at, but he also looked... tired. There were faint dark circles beneath his eyes, and fine lines at the corners that hadn’t been there before. He looked up and caught me staring but I didn’t look away. Neither did he.

He chewed his lip. ‘What happened?’

I stared at him blankly, not making the connection because I was too busy thinking about how much I wanted him still. Even after all that I knew. Which, at the end of the day, was the most pathetic bit about this whole mess.

‘Harry?’

‘Why’d you break things off with me?’

Draco opened his mouth, and then hesitated, his grey eyes flicking away from mine, and then back skittishly. The silence grew long enough that I realised the question was the last thing he expected and the answer was probably not something I even wanted to hear.

I shook my head. ‘Forget I asked,’ I said. ‘I don’t think it really matters.’

I turned my back on him, navigated my way through all the junk on my floor and sat heavily on my cot and thought about what a pain it was going to be to pack all my things in the next few hours.

After another hesitation, he followed and sat beside me on the cot, his thigh brushing against mine. ‘You have really bad timing, Harry,’ he said quietly.

I laughed. ‘I think that’s the Universe, not me.’

Draco glanced at me. At his confused expression, I added, ‘There’s a Portkey to Cairo in the morning that I’m supposed to be on.’

Draco said nothing for a long while, but his gaze didn’t leave my face for a second. As sad as it was, having all of his attention focused entirely on me, even for the short time I had it, felt really good. It was probably the best I’d felt all day.

‘Weasley’s sending you to Egypt?’

‘Yeah.’

Draco’s brow furrowed. ‘For a dig? How long?’

‘Not just a dig. He’s moving back home. I’m going to stay out there, take over all Cairo operations.’

‘But…’ Draco’s voice faded off into silence, and he looked away from me, fixing his gaze on my desk, the muscle in his jaw twitching.

I reached over and started undoing my boot laces. ‘Has the MTCSC found anything?’

He shook his head in a quick, irritated kind of way. ‘I don’t know.’

I pushed off one boot and started in on the other. ‘Why not?’

‘Because, I’ve been distracted.’

I glanced at him, but he was still staring at my desk. ‘Distracted with what?’

He looked at me finally, his eyes narrowed. ‘What the fuck do you think I’ve been distracted with?’

I sighed and toed off my other boot. ‘I honestly don’t get it, Draco. If you can’t work because I’m around, why are you here?’

‘Because you won’t answer my owls. Because I can’t get a hold of you any other way. Because I wanted to talk to you.’

‘But, _why?_ ’

He stopped short, seemingly unable to even get the words out, and I nodded. ‘It seems every time we get to this point, you run out of things to say.’ I started to get off the cot but he held my wrist, and I capitulated.

‘Okay,’ he said. ‘Okay, you’re right. Just give me a second.’

He let go of my wrist and licked his lips. ‘You asked why I broke things off with you. The truth is, I don’t know. I didn’t know even why I was saying all those things to you. It wasn’t what I wanted… I was just feeling….’

‘Trapped.’

He looked up at me, grey eyes wide. ‘Maybe. Yes.’

‘Draco, don’t you get it? I made you feel trapped. That’s not how it feels when you’re with someone you _want.’_

‘So, because I was scared, I didn’t want to be with you?’

‘Why were you scared?’

‘I don’t know! It’s not like I’ve had a lot of experience with this, Harry.’

‘Draco sighed. 'You went along with it so easily. You didn’t even try to convince—’

‘You wanted me to _convince_ you to stay with me?’ I laughed shortly. ‘How shitty is that, having to convince someone else they should love you?’

The silence that followed was like an anchor dropped at the bottom of the ocean. Draco couldn’t even look at me anymore.

‘You should go, Draco.’

Draco sighed and said quietly, ‘The first chance you got, you were off with someone else. What was I supposed to think?’

I laughed hollowly. ‘You’re a fucking little hypocrite.’

‘What’s that supposed to mean, Harry?’ he asked, his voice weary.

The flap to my tent swung open. A short, dark-skinned witch in MTCSC robes came running in, everything about her screaming ‘panic’.

Both Draco and I stood hastily as she staggered closer to us, and Draco stepped forward and put a hand under her elbow as she struggled to catch her breath.

‘What is it, Des?’

‘It’s Pansy,’ Des said, still panting for breath. She spoke to Draco as if I wasn’t in the room. ‘She’s stepped on a curse mine, Draco, I’m so sorry.’

All the colour disappeared from Draco’s face, and he seemed to sway on his feet. I steadied him with my palm at the base of his spine as he caught himself.

‘Where is she?’ he asked, his voice almost unrecognisable.

‘Sub-level, sector three. We have her stabilised for now, but you know curse mines...’

I stepped forward, eyeing Draco warily; his skin was still so pale, and he looked like he was about to pass out. ‘Do we know what it is?’ I asked.

She looked at me with faint surprise, as if only just noticing there was someone else in the room. ‘We don’t. Your boss is down there with her now. The ginger bloke? He’s the one who stabilised it.’ She turned her gaze back to Draco. ‘She’s been asking for you, but they’re going to evacuate.’

Not even a second after she said it, I heard the faint, but particularly annoying buzz of the alarm wards as they began to pulse all over the dig site.

‘Fuck that,’ Draco said, letting go of Des and pushing past us both to the tent flap. ‘I’m not leaving her down there.’

‘Draco, wait—’ I said, grabbing his elbow.

He yanked his arm away and spun around to face me. ‘Don’t ask me not to go.’

‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Okay. I won’t. Just wait for me to go with you.’

His gaze flicked to Des and back. ‘No,’ he said, licking his lips quickly. ‘You should stay, make sure everyone gets evacuated.’

I raised my brows. ‘Seeing as I’m the Cursebreaker here, I really should be the one going down there, anyway.’

Draco glanced at my wand and sighed heavily. ‘All right, fine.’ He looked to Des. ‘Make sure everyone Apparates out, Des, all right? You’re in charge.’

She nodded and we both jogged across the field down into the cut-away mineshaft I helped construct only a week ago.

As we walked down the steps, deeper into the underground, Draco slid his palm along the earth walls. ‘Did you fortify these yourself?’

I jogged to keep up with him as we almost bumped into a few witches and wizards still hastily making their way out of the shaft. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘It will hold, if that’s what you’re worried about.’

Draco turned the corner and I caught up and walked along beside him. ‘If you did it yourself,’ he said, distractedly looking for the turn off to sector three, ‘I’m not worried.’

Ignoring the sensation that put into my chest, I followed him into sector three where, upon turning the corner, we found Bill hunched over, leaning against the wooden beam in the wall, sweat beaded on his brow. Pansy looked terrified and distinctly uncomfortable, one foot stabilised with a sticking charm over a pulsing green rune circle in the dark, damp earth. Draco rushed to her side, stopping just short of touching her as the wizard-light sconce on the wall flickered.

I put my hand on Bill’s shoulder and he looked up me with a tired expression and shook his head. I sighed and let my gaze fall on Pansy and Draco again and the way they looked at each other. It hurt to see it.

When Pansy tried to force a small smile, her face crumpled and Draco closed the space between them to give her a careful one-armed hug.

I swallowed and looked down at Bill again.

‘Tell me.’

He shook his head, pushing his sweat soaked hair out of his eyes. ‘I missed it,’ he said faintly. ‘I don’t know how I missed it.’

‘What is it?’

Bill met my gaze bleakly. ‘From the combination of rune circles I saw, it’s either a blasting curse or a fever curse.’

I nodded. ‘A fever curse we can deal with.’

‘If there’s enough time to get her straight to St. Mungo’s, get the fever down fast enough, yes.’

‘A blasting-curse is...’

‘A death sentence,’ Parkinson said drily.

I looked up at her, noticing that one of her hands was linked with Draco’s. I couldn’t look away from the way her small hand fit into his larger one. His finger were paler than hers.

Draco said, ‘There’s got to be some way to break this.’

I tore my eyes away from them and looked down at Bill. ‘What have you tried?’

‘Everything. It’s the kind of curse you don’t try to break,’ he said. ‘The kind you leave behind.’ His gaze flicked to Draco. ‘The kind the MTCSC would love to study and preserve.’

Draco scowled and Bill dropped his gaze. ‘This one is beyond me, Harry.’

‘Then it’s beyond everyone we know.’ I said, running my fingers through my hair.

Bill stood up straight, tried to pull himself together. ‘Maybe there was something I missed.’ he sighed in frustration and gripped his wand tight.

If I knew Bill - and I did - he had already exhausted all the avenues. Which meant there was only one left.

I looked down at Draco and Pansy’s intertwined fingers again and said, ‘Bill, there’s something that might help.’ Draco’s gaze flicked to mine, and they were so bright with hope, my chest ached. I sighed and faced Bill again, hoping he’d follow along with me.

‘In my tent. It’s an old text from Dumbledore. It might help.’

Bill eyed me warily, slowly shaking his head. ‘No, Harry.’

‘Bill. I _know_ this will help. Take Draco with you. He might be able to find what we need faster.’

Draco was looking between Bill and me, eyes wide. I knew this would work, because he was so much like Hermione, I could see him latching onto the idea that some _thing_ in some book could save Pansy’s life. The wheels were already turning in his mind, and for the moment, I felt like shit. ‘Will you go with Bill? I’ll stay with Pansy, just in case.’

Draco nodded hastily. ‘Yes. Of course. If it will help.’

My gaze lingered on him for too long before I turned back to Bill, but I wanted to memorise him - just in case.

When I looked at him again, Bill seemed to be fighting some kind of internal battle, and I could see him working up to some kind of declaration.

‘Harry don’t...’

I cut him off before he could get started. ‘You owe me, Bill,’ I said quietly.

Bill looked over my head at Draco standing behind me, closed his eyes briefly and nodded.

‘I know the book. We’ll see what we can find.’ He looked at Draco. ‘Come on, Malfoy.’

Draco nodded and kissed Pansy on the temple. ‘We’ll be right back.’ he murmured squeezing her hand and carefully stepping away from her.

Bill led the way out, and Draco gave me one last glance before rounding the corner. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

I shook my head. ‘I won’t.’

I waited a minute after they left to start getting to work. I walked a circle around Parkison as she tracked my movements with her eyes.

‘There’s no book, is there?’ she asked quietly.

‘No.’ I pushed up my sleeves and knelt beside her, examining the curse at her feet. There was an if/and clause in the runes that was could be useful. The translation was mostly straightforward - as long as there was a solid weight on top, with a significant source of magic, it wouldn’t detonate.

‘Are you going to leave me to die?’ she asked, her voice faint.

I stopped what I was doing, pushed my glasses up my nose and looked up at her. ‘Don’t be stupid.’

She let out a shaky breath and looked down at me as I read the rune circles. There was something I was missing in the sequence, but I couldn’t put my finger on it.

‘So what are you going to do?’ Pansy asked, her voice still in that quiet, subdued whisper. ‘Why did you send Draco away?’

I stood up and dusted my knees. ‘We’re going to switch, Parkinson.’

Her eyes grew wide, and a lock of hair fell across her face. She pushed it away hastily. ‘Switch?’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Then you can get the fuck out of here while I figure this thing out. But we need to move quickly, because I think there’s a time clause written in the rune.’

Parkinson stared at me blankly. ‘Why are you doing this?’

‘Because I’m a Cursebreaker and I have a better chance of figuring this out without having to worry about you, too.’

‘I meant saving my life.’

I raised my eyebrows. ‘Do you _want_ to die like this?’

‘No!’

‘Then why are you asking? Just do what I say.’

I stood beside her, placing my boot next hers on the rune circle. The sticking charm on her held, and I wrapped one arm around Parkinson’s waist.

‘I’m going to lift the sticking charm and gently slide my foot across. Don’t fucking move. Let me do all the work.’

She nodded hastily, and as I was about to remove the charm, she stiffened and said, ‘Wait.’

I sighed. ‘What now?’

‘You made Weasley take Draco away. To protect him in case you bollocks this up, yes?’

I looked straight ahead and sighed. ‘Yes.’

‘Well then, why have you been such a git if you still care about him?’

I let go of her waist and stepped away from her so I wouldn’t throttle her instead of saving her life. ‘Of course I do! What the fuck--? We were together, Parkinson. _He_ chucked me out. What else do you need to know right this second?’

She shook her head, looking frazzled and confused. ‘He wants you back, you still love him. So why...’

I rolled my eyes and wrapped my arm around her waist again, putting my boot back into position. ‘I found you two fucking in his bed,’ I said. ‘That’s why.’

I broke the sticking charm, slid my boot across the pulsing rune, pushing hers across into safety and taking her place before resetting the sticking charm on my own boot and waiting a few seconds to see if we’d both explode.

When we didn’t, I let go of her waist and she staggered away from me, patting herself down and then looking at me, her eyes brimming with tears.

‘You saw us?’ she said faintly.

I nodded, suddenly feeling very awkward.

‘Potter, that was... nothing.’

I lifted my brows. ‘Nothing? Really? He was fucking you. The same day he broke things off with me, he was fucking you in his bed. That was nothing?’

She shook her head and wiped a few stray tears. ‘It wasn’t what you think it is. Draco and I aren’t… together like that. It was just…he was upset, and one thing led to another. That’s it.’

I shook my head, because most of what she said didn’t even make sense to me. ‘That’s not all it was,’ I said. ‘I’ve seen the way you act together. The way you look at each other.’

Parkinson scoffed. ‘Have you seen the way he looks at _you_? Potter, you have to believe me, there’s nothing between Draco and me. We love each other, but we’re _friends._ That’s it.’

I fingered my wand carefully. ‘It’s time for you to go. Get out of the shaft. Apparate to the shelter with everyone else.’

‘Draco’s probably a mess right now because of what you’ve done.’

‘He’ll be fine,’ I murmured. ‘I saved you didn’t I?’

‘He’s in love with _you_ , Potter! What would you do if he sent you away and then got himself blown up?’

‘I won’t get blown up. Just get out of here.’

She shook her head and with one last, desperate glance, she fled.

I sighed with relief and cast an anti-blast ward around myself. If I _did_ get myself blown up, at least the mine I spent days fortifying would be safe.

I knelt down and observed the rune beneath my boot. Now that I had a few moments to study it in more detail, I noticed the layers were beginning to change. As its glow changed to red, I realised a new time clause was kicking in. I laughed bleakly, because as much as it felt great to be right, the time clause translated into roughly ten minutes before the mine detonated, with or without a steady pressure on top.

I still couldn’t tell if it was a blasting charm or a fever charm, and I closed my eyes and took a few calming breaths. Panicking now wouldn’t help. I was already all in.

I tried to study the runes again, but I couldn’t really focus. There was another if/and clause I was trying to decipher when the dull thud of running footsteps echoed in the shaft. As it got closer, I cursed under my breath. If that was Bill coming back to try to help, Fleur would kill me…

But it wasn’t Bill, it was Draco, and as he ran towards me, looking like he’d been in a violent scuffle. I saw a bruise beneath his jaw, his hair hung around his face, and his square glasses, the ones he hated to admit he needed for reading, low on his nose. He ran into the shaft ran straight through my wards and kneeled in front of me, wand in hand staring at the rune. I sat back and watched him speechlessly as he translated.

‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

He traced the rune circles with his fingers murmuring beneath his breath. When he read the time clause a heavy breath escaped his lips and he sat back on his haunches. ‘There’s a time clause.’

‘I know,’ I said. ‘Why did you come back?’

He looked up at me, his eyes a little wild, one lock of hair falling trapped behind his glasses. ‘Why did you send me away?’

I knelt beside him, ‘There’s no reason for us both to get blown up.’

Draco’s gaze dropped to the rune again. ‘No one’s going to get blown up, you prick.’

After a moment’s hesitation, I reached out and touched his face, pushed the stray lock of hair behind his ear.

He blinked at me. ‘Harry...’

I said, ‘There’s another clause I missed.’

He nodded. ‘It’s going to hit us both.’

‘Yeah,’ I said.

Draco checked the watch on his wrist. ‘Five minutes.’

‘Just go.’

He shook his head, and then brushed the tips of his fingers on the rune again. ‘It’s a gorgeous piece of magic though, isn’t it?’

‘Beautiful,’ I said, dryly, but Draco didn’t catch my sarcasm. He was already in the zone, pushing his glasses up his nose and murmuring beneath his breath as he translated. ‘Look at this line here,’ he murmured. ‘It actually has a weight requirement... a magic requirement…’

‘I know.’

He didn’t even hear me that time, I rolled my eyes as he continued studying it, and I tried to figure out how to get him behind the wards I’d set and away from the blast. Knowing Draco I’d probably have to shove him off. The ward circle was only a few feet away.

Draco shook his head. ‘Harry, there are so many if/and clauses in this, it’s…’ his voice trailed off and he tensed as he translated ‘Harry…’

I leaned over his shoulder, and read the new pulsing rune we both missed, glowing red.

Draco tried to block my view and turned against me. ‘Harry, just wait...’

‘Shut up, Draco.’

There was an if/and clause that meant if I moved now, if I moved the sticking charm on my foot, I could take the curse on my own. Draco wouldn’t get hit at all. I looked up at him and I could see him already forming a logical argument about why I shouldn’t do it, and I shushed him with a quick, harsh kiss. Our teeth clicked together and I held his head firmly in my palm. When I pulled away, I held his wrist and checked the time. We had less than a minute.

I silently released the sticking charm, but didn’t move yet. I had to tell him why first.

‘If I don’t do this, it’ll hit us both. We wouldn’t stand a chance. If I detonate it now, at least that gives you time to get help.

‘I can’t Apparate out of this thing! How will I get you out? If it’s a blasting curse, you’d be _dead_ , Harry. And all I’d have is your body to haul out of here.’

‘What else do you want me to do? This is the way it has to work.’

Draco shook his head slowly, studying the pulsing rune as if he could find all the answers there somehow. ‘Harry... please don’t do this.’

‘I held him by the shoulder and gave him another final, desperate kiss. He held onto my forearms painfully and when I’d my fill of him, when I memorised his taste again, I pulled away and shoved him backwards hard, pushing him beyond the wards I’d set.

Then I lifted my foot and detonated the curse.

As it happened - as I felt my heartbeat increase from a steady pulse into a high-speed trip hammer, and heat of my body begin to rise like mercury, my first disconnected thought was that Draco looked absolutely ridiculous, sprawled out on the floor, staring up at me in horror with his glasses almost halfway off his face.

My second - much shorter - thought was _Holy shit. It’s the fever curse._

And then, I was out.

~

I was floating just above a dream. In it, there were loads of people, speaking constantly. I heard Mrs Weasley, Hermione, Ron, Draco even Parkinson, but they were too far away for me to reach them properly, or to respond. I only ever caught the tail ends of a conversation, little snippets that came in and out like a bad station on the Wizard Wireless.

I heard Ron’s voice, brisk and curt _‘If you ask me, the git shouldn’t be here at all,’_ and Hermione’s dry rejoinder, _‘I’m sure Harry would disagree, Ron.’_ I heard Draco’s voice, subdued and lacklustre, ‘ _If he dies like this…’_ and Parkinson’s alto lifting in response. _‘He is not going to die, Draco.’_

I was calmest when it was only Mrs. Weasley or Hermione in the room; then I felt content to let their voices wash over me, to remain floating on the edge of the dream and let their voices soothe me into a deeper sleep. But when I heard Draco or Ron going at it – which was almost anytime they seemed to be in the room together - something stirred in me and I felt the sudden, urgent desire to rise out of the dream and back into reality.

Draco’s was the voice I craved the most. He hovered around the edges constantly, half the time cursing me, the other half, cursing himself. He touched my hair a lot when he was alone with me, and I liked that, but every time he asked me to just wake up, I just couldn’t.

I needed more time to sleep.

~

When I finally did wake, Draco was reading on a chair beside my bed, his legs propped up on top the mattress, his glasses (for once) properly wedged onto his face.

I studied him for a while before I said anything. I couldn’t see him clearly because _my_ glasses were missing in action, but I still loved what I saw. I was glad he was okay. I was glad that he wasn’t the one in this bed, and I was happy to take his place, always. But things between us were still so complicated, and I wondered, - almost despondently - if we'd ever be in the same place at the same time again.

I shifted and cleared my throat. ‘What’s the damage?’ I asked. My voice was hoarse from disuse.

Draco’s head snapped up, and he exhaled a quick breath of air, studying me carefully for a several long moments before speaking. ‘A few organs,’ he said drily. ‘Nothing you really needed.’

I wasn’t completely sure if he was being serious, but the shadows beneath his eyes made me think he probably was. I tried to sit up and he waved his wand and lifted my bed so I could be upright.

‘My glasses?’

He reached into his pocket and pulled them out, as I slipped them on, I realised I could see a lot clearer than I usually did with my specs. I had been meaning to get them updated.

‘I had to have them fixed. You broke one side when you fell face first on the floor in a mine shaft.’

I gave him a wry smile. ‘What… and you didn’t catch me?’

‘Don’t joke about it, Harry.’ Draco’s expression looked pained.

I turned my palm upwards and raised my hand for him to take it. He hesitated, and then held on, linking our fingers together. In all the times we’d fucked - on every surface, in as many positions as we could think of – I don’t think we ever held hands. Not even once.

‘How long have I been out?’

He sighed and said quietly ‘Six _really shitty_ days.’

‘I’m sorry.’

He studied me carefully. ‘You were right though,’ he said, his voice oddly quiet. ‘If we’d both gotten hit, we would have just stayed down there and died.’

‘What happened?’

‘After you passed out I just— I froze. I just sat there, watching you burning up on the floor…’

‘We don’t have to talk about it.’

He licked his lips and carried on as if I hadn’t spoken. ‘I got it together though. I knew if I didn’t get off my arse, you’d be dead. I put a lightening charm on you, picked you up and ran as fast as I could. I brought you here.’

‘You saved me.’

Draco scoffed. ‘Well. You were seizing by the time we got here. I didn’t think to put a cooling charm on you. That was stupid.’

I squeezed his hand. ‘Draco. You saved me. Thank you.’

He nodded, looking down at our hands. ‘You’re welcome.’

He pulled his hand from mine and gently touched my forehead, checking my temperature. ‘Your skin was so hot,’ he murmured. ‘I didn’t know that was possible.’

He let his palm fall to the mattress and as the silence between us began to grow uneasy, he said, in a voice that was almost a whisper, ‘Harry, I don’t want you to go to Egypt.’

‘Draco—’

He cut me off. ‘Just wait. Before you say no. I want you to understand—’ Draco hesitated and licked his lips. ‘Pansy told me what you saw, and I want to explain.’

I took a deep breath and tried to calm the jumble of emotions threatening to close my windpipe. ‘Draco, it doesn’t matter.’

‘Yes, it does. I want you to know I wasn’t myself that night. I was… upset. I wasn’t thinking straight and it just happened.’

Draco sighed and gripped at the metal bedframe with his fingers. ‘It wasn’t about the sex,’ he said quietly. ‘It was about Pansy taking care of me the only way she knew how.’

I stared at him unable to think of anything to say to that.

‘I know you don’t understand the way it work between us, but trust me; Pansy and I will never feel that way about each other. I don’t feel about her the way I feel about you. Please understand that.’

I shook my head, not waiting to believe any of it, because things between us would never be easy. ‘Draco… you were different with her.’ I flicked my gaze away from his, because what I was about to say sounded ridiculous even in my own head, and I couldn’t look him in the eye as I said it. ‘You were gentle with her. It looked a lot like love to me.’

He brushed his hands through his hair with a frustrated swipe of his palms. ‘Dammit Harry, I love _you._ Not Pansy. I’m sorry you saw what you did, but it was a fluke. A onetime thing. When I’m with you, it’s different because I want all of you. Don’t you get that?’

‘A month ago, you broke things off with me.’

‘Harry…’ Draco sighed, chewed on his lip, made an abortive movement for his shirt pocket, hesitated, and then reached in and pulled out an envelope.

‘Before you decide. Just. Read it,’ he said. ‘Please.’

I took the letter from him, recognizing it as the same parchment o which he’d written the many owls I’d ignored in the past few weeks.

As I broke the seal on the envelope, Draco left.

*~*

_Harry,_

_I know you’re still angry about what I did. I know I fucked up when I broke things off with you. Even worse, I did it because I wanted to know how much you cared for me. It was stupid and manipulative and vindictive, but I can be all of those things sometimes, and all I can do is say sorry when I’m done. And I know it’s not enough. I was testing you, and I’m sorry I did it. I didn’t mean a word I said that night. I know I don’t deserve it, and I know when it comes to things like working out what’s going on between you and me, I’m a little dysfunctional, but I just want you to talk to me again, Harry. Let me try to explain in person, because I’m sure this letter is rubbish._

_Draco_

*~*

Two Weeks Later

Cairo was a perfect city for me. The witches and wizards didn’t know who I was. I’d been here for a week, and so far the number of _startled fan_ encounters had been zero.

I stretched my feet out on the balcony in front of me, twirling my wand idly with my free hand as I pulled Draco’s letter from my front pocket. I’d lost count of how many times I’d read it. The parchment was creased and crumpled, the ink smudged in a few places. I took a sip of my warm beer, enjoyed the last few rays of the setting sun before I got up and went inside, sliding the glass door shut against the chilly evening breeze.

I took my T-shirt off and went to the bedroom. I tossed it on the floor, and slipped into bed, hoping to get some sleep before I was out on another dig again in three hours. That was another thing about Egypt that I liked - being busy. It kept me from thinking about Draco all the time.

Most of the time.

I lay on my stomach, translating obscure Egyptian rune patterns in my head until I began to drift into foggy sleep. Just I was about to really sink into a dream involving a house elf, a Cornish pasty and Madame Rosmerta, I heard my Floo roar. The sound echoing through the wooden beams of my bed. I jumped up, startled, heart pounding, trying to think who I’d given Floo access to and what they could possibly be thinking of - barging in on me with no warning.

Maybe something was wrong with Rose or Teddy, or maybe Ron was hurt on the job — all these thoughts compounded into a hazy hysteria as I blearily padded into the living room.

But instead of a heartbroken Hermione or a frazzled parental Ron, standing there, dusting Floo powder off his clothes, was Draco.

When he saw me, he crossed the room in three quick strides, took my face in his palms and kissed me hard on the mouth. I opened my mouth, and his tongue slipped inside. His kiss was both knowing and possessive. He threaded his fingers were deeply into my hair, gripping tight as I held onto his forearms as he backed me into the bedroom.

As we crossed the doorway, he pulled away and nipped my jaw. ‘I test you, you test me, is that how it works?’ he asked in a husky whisper.

I nodded and kissed him back breathlessly, amazed that he was here, that he came, that he understood. He pushed his palms beneath my pyjama bottoms, cupping my arse as I rutted against him. He walked us backwards until the bed hit the backs of my knees as our mouth parted.

‘I knew you’d catch on,’ I said, breathing heavily.

He pulled his shirt off in one quick, graceful move, and then unbuttoned his trousers, pushing them off, and kicking them away.

When he straightened up, he tossed a stray lock of hair from his face. ‘It took me a while.’

I nodded. ‘It did.’

‘But I got the message.’

I wrapped my arms around his neck and threaded both my hands in his hair. My lips brushed against his temple as I said, ‘What was the message, Draco?’

‘It was all just words,’ Draco murmured. ‘I had to prove it.’

I nodded and kissed him again, not even protesting as he roughly shoved me onto the bed. I quickly turned over on my stomach and he didn’t waste any time either, spreading my arse open with his palms and smearing warm lube on my hole. I hissed as he slipped one finger inside me, and I spread my thighs wide as he worked me open. I hadn’t been with anyone since that one fuck up with Lee, but I didn’t need any of the preamble now, I just wanted Draco inside me.

I pushed back on his finger, and as it slipped in deeper, I made an unconscious sound that was almost a whimper. ‘Draco. Now.’

Draco withdrew his finger, not stopping to ask annoying questions like if I was sure, like Lee did, because he knew me. If I said I was ready I was ready. He knew exactly what I needed.

With one deep thrust, he was inside me. We both groaned and I held on to the sheets as tight as I could as he quickly withdrew and thrust into me again. I felt amazingly full and almost delirious as he set up quick rhythm, brushing against my prostate with each thrust. I knew neither of us would last very long, Draco knew just how to tilt his hips, knew how to give me just enough pressure to keep me on the edge. I reached for my cock and stroked in time with his thrusts as he dug his fingers into my hips. His nails were sharp crescents against my skin and I closed my eyes and sunk into the pleasure/pain of it.

I knew when he was close, his movements started to become shorter and erratic, and I stroked my cock faster, wanting to hurtle over the edge with him right beside me. After a few more stilted thrusts, he came inside of me with a grunt and I let the sensation of his cock – still pulsing come in my arse - and the last of his slow, deep thrusts send me over the edge. With a gasp, I came all over my sheets, trembling with the aftershocks even as he collapsed beside me and pulled me close, kissing the shell of my ear.

He nipped my earlobe and I shuddered some more. For some reason, it was one of his favourite things, seeing me as an unresponsive shuddering ball after he fucked me.

He kissed the back of my skull. ‘There’s some unusual magic in this new dig of yours,’ he murmured. ‘I think the MTCSC should take a look.’

I smiled. ‘This isn’t England, Draco. There’s no MTCSC here.’

He kissed me again and pulled me closer. ‘I’m here.’

_~fin_

**Author's Note:**

> You can leave a comment here or on [Livejournal](http://hd-erised.livejournal.com/33343.html). ♥


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